There are writers I return to no matter what I'm working on, writers like the South African J.M. Coetzee. He has an ability to make you feel that he is writing for you alone.

There is a insularity within American fiction even for adults. It's very tough for books in translation in the US.

Historical novels, in particular, allow us to relive the past without the neatness of history, and with all the complexity of the present.

Few [books] get translated and the ones that do have trouble making it into the mainstream. It's more likely that Americans will discover another culture through an American writer rather read a writer from that culture.

Thing that was very different for me is that an American child's reading is filled with Americans.

In some ways, I think it's the closest that we come to the truth — is in the form of fiction.

Every book leaves its mark on you. It might leave you hungry for that kind of book or you may be satiated, and you're eager to read something else. It might send you in a completely different direction. I love that about reading.